October 29, 2007

"Recount" is an upcoming TV movie, whose IMDB listing takes the contemporary fetish for protecting the reader from unknowingly discovering the exciting conclusion of the movie to the point of absurdity:

Plot Outline:

A chronicle of the weeks after the 2000 U.S. presidential election and the subsequent recounts in Florida.

"Americifascists"? The electoral-college-thing is, in a profoundly fifth-grade sense, totally gay. People were correct to point that out, and wonder what their elected legislators were doing in 1999, when it should have been set fire to, or 2002, when it should have been scrapped, or now, when it's inexplicably still there. I can't recall its hoary justification, but I know it's no longer operative, as the People, in their infinite wisdom, intuitively sensed. They didn't even know such a thing existed, and really, they shouldn't have, because it should no longer exist.

Some years back, I saw a movie called "Backbeat," which told the story of the Beatles' early days playing at sleazy clubs in Hamburg, back when Stu Sutcliffe was their bassist. The movie ends just after Sutcliffe's death, right about the time the Beatles were beginning to take off.

Right as the movie ended, a postscript told us tha the Beatles went on tobecome the most popular rock group of all time.

Thank God for that postscript! Without it, I'd have lain awake all night wondering what ever happened to those guys!

They should have lent historical perspective on the matter by illustrating Truman and his goons as he took the presidency away from Dewey, then shoot on over to the Kennedy's for even more election stealing fun.Maybe someone could provide a "what if" scenario, highlighting Nixon, and what would have happened if he had ignored his advisors and went ahead and exposed Kennedy's link to organized crime, and how he used it to pull the rug out from under Nixon in Chicago.The dems have never gotten the full credit they deserve for the legacy of our presidential election process.Something should be done.

The electoral-college-thing is, in a profoundly fifth-grade sense, totally gay. People were correct to point that out, and wonder what their elected legislators were doing in 1999, when it should have been set fire to, or 2002, when it should have been scrapped, or now, when it's inexplicably still there.

The one remaining justification for the electoral college is that it serves to contain fraud in the presidential elections. With state-by-state races, there is no reason for state parties to stuff ballot boxes in reliably blue or red states. It doesn't do anyone any good.

Of course, like all sensible checks on direct democracy, this is being eroded as well. Several states have decided to scrap the traditional method for allocating their electors (by who won that state) and allocating them instead to whomever wins the popular vote nationwide.

Did Daley's machine steal votes in Chicago? Of course. But you think Nixon's campaign was a pure as a virgin snow?

Republican machines stole just as many if not more votes in downstate Illinois, and in many other states.

Kennedy won Illinois mostly fair and totally square, and clearly was the choice of the American people, who gave him a popular vote majority in 1960. And that whole "let's beat up black people if they show up to vote" thing was none too fair either, a bit worse than a few dead people voting.

After all, we let 95-year-old living fossels with stage 57 terminal cancer vote. What's the big deal if a few recently deceased voters show up who are only in slightly worse shape?

Kennedy won Illinois mostly fair and totally square, and clearly was the choice of the American people, who gave him a popular vote majority in 1960. And that whole "let's beat up black people if they show up to vote" thing was none too fair either, a bit worse than a few dead people voting.

Holy cow, talk about ahistorical BS.

The reality is, the only way anyone can possibly give Kennedy a majority of the popular vote is if you count all of the unpledged Democratic electors as going to Kennedy, when in reality the votes they represented went to Robert Byrd. Nixon actually won the plurality of the vote, period.

And as far as sinister pro-Nixon thugs going around beating up black people, that's just a laugh. Nixon thought he had the black vote all sewn up, since they were reliably Republican up until that point. Go back to school, son.

I honestly wonder if anon has ever READ the Federalist Papers? Or if he's just retarded?

The Electoral College prevents a tyranny of the (bare majority). It specifically was created to prevent large population states (NY, Virginia, PA) from dominating the small population states. It buys peace in the Union, because the President HAS to have some small state support (or, conversely, at least a few big states). You can't get domination of say, big cities and states at the expense of mid-west or southern states. Or the converse.

And as far as sinister pro-Nixon thugs going around beating up black people, that's just a laugh. Nixon thought he had the black vote all sewn up, since they were reliably Republican up until that point. Go back to school, son.

Nixon carried the Southern black vote in 1960, where the Dems(including the very progressive J William Fulbright) were still segregationists. In the North, however, FDR's New Deal had caused most blacks to switch parties.

I'm still waiting for a boulevard in Compton to be renamed in his honor

Sorry, he'll have to take a back seat to my proposal to rename UCLA after President James K Polk. I also have a long list of things in Dearborn I'd like to name after Charles Martel, John Sobieski, and a few others.

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